A smashing time

Some of my friends gave me a ukulele as a graduation gift.  I've done a lot of music in the past, playing the violin, piano, and voice, and almost going to The Royal Acadamy of Music back in the mid/late '90s.  However, I've never played the guitar, so the ukulele is a whole new venture, but my friends thought that it'd be an ideal instrument for me as it's light, low-energy, and easy to play sitting (or lying) down.  I've only had the ukulele for two weeks, but I'm greatly enjoying learning it.

I went into town the other day in Taz - my electric wheelchair - to get some ukulele music and another book to teach myself as the book I'd previously bought doesn't give enough practise at the skills it teaches. I went to the main music shop in Newcastle city centre - Windows. It's a fantastic shop, and one that I almost lived in as a teenager with a love of making music.  It's also in the most beautiful old arcade - Central Arcade - which was first built as a commercial exchange and newsroom in 1869, but then rebuilt and opened as an arcade in 1906 after a terrible fire.

Windows has been in Central Arcade since 1908, so only just after the redesigned arcade was opened, and because of its age, Windows doesn't have a lift at all.  Most of the instruments and all of the sheet music are upstairs, so this made my quest to get ukulele music a little tricky.

I made my way to the counter at the far end of the shop, along the narrow aisles of the ground floor, past the expensive digital pianos and all the CDs and records (yes, they even have some vinyl!), and I asked the guy at the till for assistance from upstairs. No problem. All I had to do was wait at the bottom of the stairs, which were all the way back from where I'd come.

After a short wait a lovely young lady came down with lots of books she thought might be useful (I had explained to the man at the till what I was after), and also lots of advice as she plays the ukulele herself. Marvellous, and typical of Windows to have knowledgeable staff. I decided to buy a few helpful-looking books, and I followed her back down the narrow aisles to the till to pay. Still no problem ... until it came to leave...

There wasn't much space between the till and the end of the central racks full of vinyls and CDs; certainly not enough space to turn Taz around, so I had to reverse. However, I was reversing in a tight little space and not concentrating fully because a) I wasn't feeling too well; and b) I was trying to hold onto the rather large box of books I'd just bought in a carrier that was threatening to slip off my knee.

I reversed confidently into a set of free-standing metal shelves full of CDs, only now they weren't so full of CDs. I moved forward to disentangle myself from the shelves, but they had somehow attached themselves to the bottom of my wheelchair. The whole lot fell over. The lovely lady picked up all the CDs, and the grumpy-faced man who had earlier been on the till detached the shelves from Taz. Not so helpfully, he put them back to exactly the same place they had been, and when I then tried reversing again, I promptly crashed into them again. They were now rather bent. I eventually managed to turn Taz around and scoot up the aisle without damaging anything else.  The grumpy-faced, and now grumpy-natured, man held the door open for me as I left.


I hope he read the sticker on the back of Taz. It reads, 'Chaos. Panic. Disorder. My work here is done.'

Progress

It's far, far too long since I blogged.  Apologies.  I had my first meeting with my PGCert portfolio supervisor so I've been spending some time writing, and a lot of time fretting that I haven't written enough.  In the end I sent my supervisor the miserly 1254 words I had written, and ended up getting some good comments, although I did promise to write considerably more by the time we next meet.  I'd better get to it though, as our next meeting is on 21st July, which is approaching far too quickly :o/

Now then, back in May I blogged about how I can't get into my local pharmacy because they have no disabled access.  They assured me that they'd finally been given planning permission for a temporary ramp, and I speculated on what a 'temporary ramp' might be.  Weeeeeeeeell, I went to the pharmacy on Friday, and was pleasantly surprised to see that they had at last had a doorbell fitted so that wheelchair users could now attract the attention of the shop keepers without having to rattle the letterbox while the door automatically closes on our faces.  After pressing the new doorbell, I wasn't entirely sure that it was working because I didn't hear any tell-tale ringing, but a minute or so later one of the assistants came to the door, and then asked if I would like the ramp!  Would I like the ramp?!  Of course I would like the ramp!  I would love not to feel like a second-class citizen waiting out on the street next to the dog that's been tied to the bollard whilst its owner has gone inside the shop.  It turns out that a temporary ramp is a foldy-uppy ramp that, although apparently heavy, can be put into place when needed and then stored away inside again. 

It was a real novelty to go inside the chemist shop.  While I was waiting for my prescription I had a little scoot around and looked at all the things I now had access to buy ... and then decided that there wasn't really anything that I particularly wanted to buy at that time.  At least I knew that for myself now.  How very pleasing  :o)

The ramp does look pretty heavy, and for some reason they keep it behind the counter at the far side of the shop.  I rather suspect that the pharmacists and shop assistants are going to get fed up with lugging it around all the time, and if this happens they might just push management for a permanent ramp.  Sooooo, my very basic plan is to go into the store as much as possible, which won't be difficult as I have to go there for my prescription very frequently, and they almost never have everything on my scripts, so I invariably have to go twice for each one.

Progress, definite progress, but my quest for equality of access isn't over yet.  I'll be back into Boots tomorrow for the rest of today's prescription, so I hope the pharmacists and shop assistants have had spinach for dinner tonight ;o)

Access

I can't get into my local pharmacy.  You'd think that of all the places that'd be wheelchair accessible it'd be a chemist shop, but no, my local one has a step about 6 inches high at the door and no ramp.  It doesn't even have a door bell.  Helpfully (or not), it has one of those large push-buttons with the wheelchair symbol on so that the door opens automatically and a wheelchair user doesn't then have to negotiate holding the door open as they try to go through, but that's not an awful lot of use when you can't actually get up the step to go through the door.  It's a bit rubbish really, especially as I'm there quite frequently to get the huge prescriptions of meds that keep me alive.  When I go there I use that push-button on the outside of the shop, keeping my elbow on it so that the door doesn't then close on my face after a few seconds, and knock the letterbox until someone at the till on the other side of the shop notices me.  Either that or I ask some passing person if they can tell a member of staff that I'm there.  I will eventually be seen to, but have to wait outside while my script is being prepared, and this can take some time.  It's not so bad if the weather's good, but it's no fun at all if it's freezing cold, pouring with rain, or blowing a gale, and it also makes me feel very much like a second-class citizen.

Two and a half years ago I asked them if they had any plans to get a ramp.  They didn't, but after my enquiry they applied for planning permission.  Excellent!  Not so excellent has been the council's response.  When there was a 'trend' for ram-raiders the pharmacy put up concrete bollards in front of the large, glass frontage, and these have since caused a problem with getting planning permission for a ramp.  Goodness knows why.  Anyway, I got a bit fed up with waiting so checked the progress of the ramp planning permission on the council's website, and came up with nothing.  I couldn't see any mention anywhere of an application having been made.  Hmmm.  I contacted my local councillor to see if he could help, after all he was so helpful with getting the snow cleared for me so I could get to the doctors at the height of that awful weather in December.  He made enquiries.  He contacted the regional manager of this national pharmacy chain.  They sent an email back to him saying that they had no plans to install a ramp at this store and hadn't set aside any money to do so.  My friendly councillor pointed out that they were in breech of the Disability Discrimination Act, and low and behold they agreed to have a meeting with Mr Friendly Councillor ... only then there was a change of regional manager and the new one had to get up to speed with her new role before she could meet with Mr Friendly Councillor.

I was at the pharmacy again yesterday, sitting outside in the 60-70mph winds, when the store manager came out.  I've been hassling her intermittently about getting a ramp in the hope that she'd hassle her boss and the hassle would continue up the chain, and something somewhere seems to have worked, because yesterday she told me that they've been granted planning permission for a temporary ramp.  This is fantastic, though I do wonder what a temporary ramp is, and how temporary is temporary, and does it mean that they're just going to have a ramp for a short while and then take it away again, or are they actually going to replace the temporary ramp with a permanent one.  Whatever, it's great that I'll be able to get into the shop at last, even if it is only for a short time.  Mind you, there's no saying how long it'll take to get this temporary ramp installed.

On the window of the same store is this sign (apologies for the reflections):

It tickles me.  I know the two pieces of information on the sign aren't supposed to be linked, but the fact that they appear on the same sign, and there's a complete lack of punctuation, does make it look as though they will charge for any help they give to the disabled, elderly, or those with children ... and it does kind of fit with the attitude the regional manager has appeared to have regarding ramp access to this store.  It really does tickle me, though :o)